Source: CSO

Irish expenditure on foreign holidays by Irish residents fell by 28.1% to €814m in Q1 2009 compared to Q1 2008. Spending on business travel fell by over a quarter to €159.5m. In addition, a total of €168.1m was spent on visiting friends and relatives and this was down 18% from the same period in 2008. Overall spending on foreign trips was down 22.1% to €1,241.4m, according to the CSO.

Irish residents took a total of 1,597,000 foreign trips in Q1 2009, which was 11.3% less than in Q1 2008. Total nights spent away fell by nearly a fifth to 10,144,000. Holiday trips fell by 23.6% to 930,000 and business trips were down 18.2% to 157,000. Trips involving visiting friends and relatives however increased by 5.6% from Q1 2008.

All but five destinations suffered a decline in Irish visitors in Q1 2009 compared to Q1 2008. The destinations to gain were Northern Ireland (+36.3%), Great Britain (+5.8%) and Australia, New Zealand & Oceania (+7.1%) while visits to Greece and Central, Southern &Other Americas remained the same.

Domestic Travel

Irish residents took a total of 1,760,000 domestic trips in Q1 2009 which was about 5% less than that recorded in Q1 2008. Holiday trips fell by 17% to 739,000 while those for business were down by 16.5% to 162,000. The number of trips spent visiting friends and relatives also declined but to a much lesser extent.

Domestic travellers also spent fewer nights away than in Q1 2008. Total nights spent away fell by 8.8% to 4,221,000 and principal among this was a fall of 27% to 1,706,000 in the number of nights spent on holidays. The number of nights spent on business travel and those visiting friends and relatives fell by 15.8% and 9.3% respectively.

Total expenditure on domestic trips fell by 9.8% to €256.3m in Q1 2009 from Q1 2008. Holiday travel expenditure fell by nearly a quarter to €137.8m while that on visiting friends and relatives fell by 11.9% to €37.6m. Expenditure on business travel was down by 10.6% to €37.3m from Q1 2008.

The CSO says when comparing Q1 2009 and Q1 2008 it should be noted that Easter occurred wholly in the first quarter of 2008 compared to the second quarter in 2009.